UN-Equal

So long as it doesn't involve picking up its tab, the United Nations likes to pretend all member states countries are equal. Some, however, are obviously more equal; others less so.

In 2003 alone, the General Assembly issued 18 resolutions condemning Israel for rights violations, compared to four resolutions for other countries.

. . . writes Adam Entous (Reuters) in an article published in the Washington Post, explaining a few of the reasons why Israel is always suspicious of the UN's efforts and motives.

Some the UN's member states to which it extends its version of equality aren't nations at all, but terrorist organizations.

An Israeli commander at the Lebanese border recalls peering through binoculars one afternoon to see U.N. peacekeepers sipping tea with Hizbollah guerrillas.

Kofi's first suggestion on how to resolve the current situation was to send in peacekeepers. More? A different kind perhaps? The UN's had a presence on the Lebanon side of the border with Israel since 1978 so what . . . oh, that's right! They're not really peacekeepers but UNIFIL: UN Interim Force in Lebanon. Their sole purpose is humanitarian in nature . . . drink tea with members of Hezbollah so they don't feel lonely, I guess.

Relations between Israel and the United Nations plummeted after information emerged that U.N. peacekeepers on the Lebanon border suppressed video tapes of three soldiers being abducted by Hizbollah guerrillas in 2000.

UNIFIL denied the charge, but the U.N. later admitted unintentionally concealing evidence from Israel.

"We know that they had line of sight and could see the actual kidnapping. They could have put roadblocks up to prevent Hizbollah from escaping. But they didn't lift a finger," said Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the U.N.

It is unclear whether the three soldiers were killed at the time of the raid and their bodies taken away or whether they were captured and killed later.

Jonah Goldberg adds in an LA Times editorial [Bugmenot]

[F]or eight months, the U.N. troops angrily denied even having the tape. When forced to admit they did, they refused to release it because that might compromise their "neutrality."

Neutrality like this?

On July 20 Kofi briefed the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. In his statement he decried UNIFIL's inability to perform its huminitary mission in Lebanon, said he's going to issued a FLASH APPEAL for funds because the jooze have wrecked the place, and that the kidnapped Israeli soldiers should be returned "as soon as possible."

Now now. Not immediately. But "as soon as possible." When convenient. When the terrorists aren'ts too busy drinking tea with UN personnel, perhaps?

And Kofi wants a ceasefire, too. His version of a ceasefire, however, obviously affects only Israel.

As Ambassador John Bolton replied later, "How you get a ceasefire between one entity, which is a government of a democratically elected state on the one hand, and another entity on the other which is a terrorist gang, no one has yet explained."

(Image via Canadian Jewish News.)

LATER: Others have also noted the deafening silence of the humanitarians.